“Because of all of the intervals, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is really hard to sing for every American, even professional musicians,” he said. “This is why it is sung by great (singers) at baseball games and football games and all sort of events Americans go to.”
The song — America’s national anthem since 1931 — is celebrating its 200th birthday this year.
Wright State University instructor of voice Peter Keates said there are four main reasons so many people have such a hard time (Think Carl Lewis' classic fail at that Bulls vs. Nets in 1993 ) with Francis Scott Key's mega hit written in three.
The range
“The range of the piece is certainty challenging for an amateur, and I think we find at times that those are the people that end singing it,” he said.
The e’s in Free
The high note in the song is ‘free’,” Keates said. “This vowel is what we would call a closed vowel. Certainly someone with no training is going to have maybe more difficulty with that particular vowel on the high note.”
Expectations
“There is such a tradition of the piece. Everybody knows,” Keates said. “There is a certain expectation of how it sounds and how it should go. This is the case with a lot of popular music that we all have a shared understanding of what it should be like and that places that expectation on the singer.”
The audience
“One often has to sing it in front of a huge crowd. They end up with all that added pressure,” he said. “We are not used to singing in front of thousands of people a lot of times.”
“When we have any of of these major events in our country like an inauguration or special ceremony, that’s when we trot out the trained opera singer,” he said. “We really want to hear it done in really the most trained, correct way representing how much we have patriotic, nationalist feelings.”
As a bonus, there is confusion about what’s actually happening in the song.
Wright State University Military History Professor Paul D. Lockhart said not knowing what the song is about doesn’t help how it is performed.
“On the other hand, I think people tend to have the wrong words to a lot of songs,” he said. “But not knowing the historical context I am sure makes something of a difference.”
He noted that many mistakenly associate “The Star-Spangled Banner” with the better known Revolutionary War.
Like citizens of most other nations, Lockhart said “Americans tend to be fairly ignorant about their past.”
“Especially with ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ because of the conflict in which it was set,” he said. It (the War of 1812) is a big unknown for Americans in general.”
The 200th anniversary of the start of the War of 1812 — considered the Second War of Independence — came and went with no pomp nor circumstance two years ago.
Lockhart said the event described in ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ — Fort McHenry standing despite British forces — was not huge when you consider the big picture.
“This is significant in the context of the War of 1812 and it probably kept the British from capturing Baltimore, but in the general scheme of things, it is not the most decisive moment in the History of American Wars,” he said. “It was really a small affair actually. It has become immortalized because of the national anthem.”
The professor said “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and “Hail, Columbia” have more substantial histories with Americans than Key’s “Star-Spangled Banner.” It has always surprised him that neither of those highly recognizable songs became the anthem.
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